


Mines and Matter

by MercurialComet



Series: That one universe where Beau got a babysitter worse than her [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Unreliable Narrator, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-30 17:51:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13956879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercurialComet/pseuds/MercurialComet
Summary: (Episodes 6 and 7.)  Argus never knew that the mines could be so perilous.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I'm currently writing the story for episodes 8 and 9. My goal is to finish them up by either Thursday or Monday so I can get ready and be as caught up with canon as I can be.
> 
> Also, I know Argus has a lot more encounters with Molly, but they're probably the driving force behind figuring out his backstory, so I'm trying to diversify his ties to the group, but right now it's Molly and Beau.

Argus woke himself up in an uncomfortably stuffy room, lying on the ground, at first seeing chains hold him onto the ground, but as he jumps up in a panic, he realized that he was just in a random inn, his charge and her party awake and moving around the room, a chaotic pattern of people and items exchanging places.

 

“Oh, you’re awake.” Caleb awkwardly smiles at him as he wraps his scarf around his neck.  “Jester!” The shout brings the blue-skinned tiefling over to look at her newest patient, giving him a quick glance.

 

“He seems fine.” She says. “The wound from the arrow is closed and clean, he should be good.” Argus starts to ask her how she knew the wound was closed, but at the edge of his vision, he notices that the shirt that he was wearing yesterday during the fight had been removed.

 

 _I went all that time without noticing that? You’re getting rusty Argus._ He’s jarred back into reality hearing Nott’s voice. “What about you Fjord?” she asked, Argus missing any context of the conversation beforehand. “Are you going to vomit any seawater this morning?”

 

_Wait, that was seawater? Maybe I’ve been a bit too focused on keeping Beau safe. I’ll ask her later._

 

Fjord fake wretches for a bit before nodding his head no. “Now, about the town-”

 

Caleb interrupts him. “Do we think that there’s anything left of this town?”

 

Molly nods at while they pull on their coat. “That is a question.”

 

“Anything left?” Fjord’s brow is arched, he seems to be thinking hard about anything he may have seen yesterday.

“It didn’t seem like the whole thing was on fire, right?” Nott asked, throwing her hood up.

 

“Always the possibility that part of the city stands.” Argus pointed out, stretching his back as he started getting ready for the day, deciding to forego a shirt just in case Jester need to patch him up again.

 

“We couldn’t quite see it at night, that’s true.” Fjord reasoned. Caleb nodded, dirty red hair shaking next to his ears.

 

“I would like to take a walk and see what it is we’re out to save.”

 

Jester interjects, talking excitedly. “We can steal some things!” _Isn’t she the cleric? I’ve never met a cleric who’s willing to steal something before._

 

Caleb pauses for a second, thinking over his words before he speaks. “Maybe we do that second, and first we take a walk.”

 

Talk suddenly shifts to pay and Argus can make out bits and pieces, someone named Bryce, 60 gold, the promise of more gold. Thinking about the guard from earlier and the four ears he has in his bag that haven’t sold yet, he thinks it’s safe to say he’s sitting on a lot of money, and that brings a smirk to his face as he leans back against the wall and watches Fjord and Jester argue over some unspoken agreement.

 

* * *

 

Argus was just finished getting a quick bag packed for the day, wrapping his hands for fighting when Molly walked up to him, smiling as they took a quick full-body glance. “Are you alright for the day?”

 

“Yeah.” Argus smiled back as he wrapped his hand. “It takes more than an arrow to take me out.”

 

“Yeah, it takes an arrow and a few deep swipes into your chest.” they quip back.

 

“Touche.” Argus strapped the crowbar onto the side of his bag.

 

“Aren't you going to get cold? Not that much to protect you from it when you forego a shirt.”

 

“Half-dragonborn, silver.” Argus explained, gesturing to his arms, littered in silver scales. “Don't get cold as easily. Why are you so interested?” He noticed that the rest of the group was slowly dwindling out the door, all of them listening in on the conversation.

 

“Need to be interested in the person who took an arrow for me.” Molly said offhandedly, “You were standing in directly in front of me and blocked the arrow.” They explain, seeing a look of non-recognition on the monk’s face.

 

“Oh. You're welcome, I guess.” The two look at each other for a few seconds before laughing.

 

“You interest me Argus.” Molly remarks, wiping a tear from their eye. “You tick off some kind of sixth sense.”

 

Argus keeps a straight face as he looks at the tiefling. “Hopefully it's a good sixth sense.”

 

“Hopefully it is.” Molly nodded. “Shall we leave and face the great world out there?”

 

Argus stood up, swinging his bag over his shoulder. “We shall.”

 

* * *

 

“Question.” Beau starts, Fjord spitting off to the side and Argus standing next to her. “If you were a crazy, ravenous, dog humanoid person thing, what would make you really hungry all of a sudden?” There was a beat of silence before she shakes her head, muttering, “I didn’t phrase that question really well.”

 

“No,” Fjord nods his head. “I knew where you were going with it, though. How do we ring the dinner bells? How do we get them to come to us?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“My first thought,” Argus says, “is to go rob them of their food, for cause a shortage of some sort, but I don’t think that’s the best idea.”

 

“Yeah.” Beau crosses her arms. “It seems like they’re into meat? Kind of anything, really.”

 

“Well, they done took it all, I think.” Fjord states, looking out into the city and it’s wreckage.

 

“But they are pretty hungry now.” Argus claimed. “They did just ransack the town for food.”

 

“You know who else was really hungry out of fucking nowhere?” Beau asked, snapping her fingers. “The devil toad guy.”

 

Argus couldn’t have heard her correctly. “I’m sorry, the what now?”

 

“Devil toad, Molly’s circus, first evil thing, tell you later.”

 

Fjord looks at Beau with a confused look. “Wait, he was hungry all of a sudden?” She lowers her arm, uncertain.

 

“I don’t know. I mean, it might be a coincidence.”

 

“And the authorities always go to the shop across the street from the one you’re robbing.” Argus mutters, Beau giving him a look out of the corner of her eye as she overhears him. Fjord doesn’t hear him and continues on.

 

“You thinking some of them gnolls had some fiendish qualities, perhaps?”

 

Beau sighed. “Well, considering some of them were undead-”

 

“Right. Shit.”

 

“There was that zombie gnoll thing.”

 

“I forgot all about that.”

 

“How could you forget that?”

 

“I have some weird dreams.” Fjord stops talking, obviously waiting for someone else to continue the conversation. When he doesn’t get an answer he looks up and sees the two monks looking at him with looks of confusion and slight disgust. “Other nights.” he waves his hand to dispel an awkward notions. “Did you have a plan? Did you want to do something to wrangle them-”

 

“I was just kind of striking conversation.”

 

“I’m all out of ideas at this point.”

 

“Oh.” Fjord shrugs, looking down the road. “Maybe we’ll follow them to the Barn Broad.”

 

“Okay,” Beau nods. “Let’s go to the Barn Broad.”

 

“It’s Broad Barn.” Argus says, checking his nails. “He’s fucking with you.”

 

“I was going along with him.”

 

* * *

 

Argus never thought he’d be hiding in tall grass, looking at hyenas in front of a mine shaft for a job, but life does have a tendency to surprise him.

 

“You think they’re centurions?” Beau whispered. Argus shook his head, watching as they fought over a piece of meat.

 

“I think they’re going to make a big fucking stink if we-” Caleb’s interrupted by Beau again.

 

“If they see us?” He nods. “I bet they’re the alert system.” _Not the guards themselves. That’s clever._

 

“We should kill them!”

 

“But we have to kill them all at once.”

 

“I could make a distraction.” Fjord interjects. “Nott, Beau, are y’all fast, quick, and quiet?” The two girls nodded. “Who else?”

 

“Me.” Argus silently raises a hand to shoulder height, not rustling the grass as he does so.

 

“Alright.” Fjord holds out a hand and draws a sigil in the air as a little bunny, slightly plump but with one lame leg hops out of the grass, catching the hyenas’ attention and causing them to bum rush it. As they got close to the grass line, Argus and Beau jump out to attack one, Beau’s staff missing, but Argus’ crowbar catching it across the face and rocking its world. Off to the side, he notices Caleb sending out a bolt of fire, Jester sending out a wave of flame, Molly’s blade cutting a hyena in half.

 

The hyena that Argus hit attempted to run away, but it took one crossbow bolt to dispatch it, ending the small battle. Jester quickly picked up the bodies and tossed them far into the tall grass. Molly covers their sword in a cloth to dampen the ridiculous glow that’s coming from it, a look on their face as they do so, with small glances thrown around the group inquisitively.

 

“Not to alarm anyone, but that was fucking efficient.” _Can't disagree with that._

 

* * *

 

 _This girl is drunk._ That is all that Argus is thinking as he sees Nott grab Frumpkin and place him in her pocket before she disappears behind the barricade.

 

After some time, a slam suddenly sounds from the inside and Argus is getting more and more worried for her safety, pacing back and forth, the scales on his back and arms shimmering as the light from the outside of the cave streaks in. Jester

 

Caleb shouts out and runs in, the rest of the party frantically following him. In unison, the three humans stopped once they stepped foot in the dark room, Argus reaching out with his crowbar trying to tap stuff. There are brief flickers of light, Jester’s magic sticking to a gnoll that’s threatening Nott and Fjord’s magic encompassing the room for the split second it existed. Directly in his left ear, he hears Molly snarl out a guttural tone, and as lights emanate outward from Caleb, the group can see the currently illuminated gnoll twitch heavily.

 

Nott reacts quickly, reaching upward and grabbing a gnoll, electricity racing through its body and it collapses as she dashes off. The other gnoll pulls out a longbow and fires an arrow, hitting Fjord, who stumbles a bit. Beau runs up and whacks the gnoll, stabbing it afterwards for good measure as the life drains out of it quickly.

 

Jester dashes around and cuts off the ears as Beau shakes off her staff’s newest passenger. Fjord is talking to Nott, and Argus can smell the alcohol on her breath.

 

“How’d they find you?”

 

“I don’t know, they’re very clever.” She’s slightly slurring her words together. “I was sneaking all the way down and they still discovered me. I don’t know how.” After she says this, the group, almost in unison, looks at a splintered log on the ground with a rope attached to it. “That happened _after_ they discovered me.”

 

Fjord looks at her. “Right.”

 

* * *

 

“Human, want a lantern?” Molly smirks as they hold it out to the three currently huddled around Caleb’s dancing light.

 

“Which human?” Argus asks as Beau grabs it from their hands. “It’s not even lit yet.” He reaches around in his bag for some flint and steel, lighting the lamp and providing more light. Caleb doesn’t dispel his dancing light, and Argus grabs the lamp, holding it up in the air to see further down the tunnel.

 

“All right guys,” Beau lightly claps her hands together. “Left tunnel or right tunnel?”

 

Nott waves the question off. “It’s fine, I’ll go down the tunnel and scout for us.” Molly pats her her shoulder.

 

“Well, before we do that, we should remember to check for traps maybe.”

 

Jester perked up and turned to Nott. “Oh, can you do that?” The rogue shrugs.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“I certainly can’t.” Molly remarks.

 

“I mean, I can look for them.” Nott reasons, “I don’t know what a trap looks like.” Everyone’s eyes widen except for Jester’s.

 

“Well, what did the one that you got hit with before look like?”

 

“Big piece of rope, probably should have seen it.” Argus bursts out into silent laughter, leaning on Beau’s shoulder as she’s giggling too.

 

Jester gave them all dirty looks as she continued to speak to the goblin. “Maybe look for ropes crossing the ground.” They both smiled.

 

“All right.” Argus laughed harder, even as he did a quick scan of the tunnels and saw no traps.His laughter and focus had blocked him out of an ensuing conversation, but he turned around to report his findings just in time to see Nott say, “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t drink.”, as she’s pointing a finger at Fjord’s chest.

 

_She’s actually foolhardy when she’s drunk. This is a horrible idea._

 

* * *

 

Fjord whispers, “Don’t make a sound.” about two seconds before Caleb vomits in the back of the group, and Argus can’t really blame him, this cross between a cult sacrifice and dinnertime is repulsive and bizarre. The humanoid figure that’s covered in gnoll flesh says some words, he can’t make them out right now, but suddenly a lot of motion is going on and there’s bones and bodies being dragged and suddenly Argus is being shaken by Beau, a look of concern and questioning on her face.

 

“I’m fine.” he whispers, “What am I missing?”

 

“We’re hiding there-” she points to a place in the room, close to the wall, before she jumps off and runs, not making a sound. Argus follows, nearly dropping his crowbar, but catching it in time to not alert anything hostile. Both of them gag as they realize they landed in, and are standing on, old remains of other people.

 

They both watch as Frumpkin takes flight across the room and taps the wall, an arrow almost instantly striking him and causing him to disintegrate like all familiars do, disappointing the four hyenas that had rushed his body. Jester’s spiritual lollipop comes down on a gnoll, striking it with a divine sugary force. Another gnoll looks down, confused as magic slithers over it before another bolt of magic slams into it and explodes, causing it to stumble heavily. Beau suddenly rushes forward, and Argus can hear the metallic clinking of ball bearings as they roll along the ground. Feeling inspired, he pulls out a ball bearing and aims before he throws it at one of the gnolls, hitting it and attracting it’s attention. A bolt of fire comes searing down and hits the same gnoll hit by the bolt of magic, crying out as it collapses. Nott pokes out of her hiding place- _She was there the whole time?_ \- and fires a bolt into the gnoll Jester attacked, killing it as the bolt went straight through its skull. Keeping an eye on Nott, Argus also notices Molly jumping in the same space as her, but not before they look at a gnoll and say something, the gnoll twitching violently.

 

Argus decides that it’s time to step up his game and he runs out at the gnoll he hit, swinging at it with his crowbar and connecting, a pained yelp sounding off across the room as he pulls back, dropping into a defensive position.

 

The gnoll immediately strikes back, a claw flying towards Argus’ face before he ducks and knocks it away from him, not noticing the arrow that swings over his head. As he stands back up, he notices two hyenas lunging at him and quickly jumps over the two, doing a small half-spin in the air and landing with his crowbar at the ready and already swinging downward at one of the hyenas, wounding it heavily before he punches it in the face and it crumbles to the ground. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, he spins backwards, using his left elbow to strike at the other hyena, taking it out in one hit.

 

A full second doesn’t even pass by before an arrow whizzes by his head, startling Argus enough for the butt of the spear to hit him in the gut, winding him. As he regains his breath, he notices the small fights breaking out around the cavern, Caleb sending out a quick bolt of lightning before he charges down the stairs, Beau flying across the wall, staff held above her head, Jester’s lollipop speeds itself across the room, and Fjord and Molly slice into two hyenas. Suddenly, Nott’s voice travels around the room as she says, “If you spend all day in a well, well, that’s a day well spent!” Argus’ eyebrow raises. _That’s a terrible joke._

 

He’s not particularly shocked however, when the gnoll in front of him cackled and falls down onto the ground, the sounds echoing around the room. He shrugs and wails into it, a crowbar strike and a punch landing, Argus attempting to make an open wound, but not being able to get strike a vein with his scaled hand. He watches as dark magic gathers around the gnoll and Argus dives out of the way as the beam of magic he was expecting glanced off of it’s armor. The failed strike sobers up the gnoll, it looking around confused, although it does roll out of the way as Beau attempted to pile-drive it with her elbow, starting to laugh naturally before she kicks it in anger.

 

Jester’s lollipop flies through the air and misses, the gnoll rolling out the way, only to meet Nott and her shortsword, the blade going through it and pining it into the ground. Jester runs around and collects gnoll ears and Argus makes his way over to Beau and helps her up. “Next time,” he whispers, “use your shoulder.” Beau cracks a smile before she turns around and faces the entrance, a scream sounding off in the distance.

 

“Guys, there’s something bigger.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We finish up the trip in the mines, and I finish writing fight scenes for the good forseeable future.
> 
> Also, Molly knows stuff and Shakaste is here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, after this, expect slower updates, because Episodes 8 and 9 contain so many good scenes, but I just can't write them all to good effect. Also, expect a bit more skewed telling of the story, as we are technically looking through Argus' eyes, and he is a (mostly) reformed criminal, however little space I have to write that in.

The group was running after that scream, entering another tavern, Argus hearing sounds, but not being able to see anything without light, grabbing onto a shoulder as he stands waiting for light. 

 

“On the count of three.”

 

“Wait, what?” Argus hears the rushing of someone moving quickly, the twang of a string, and the thud of a bolt hitting something. He jumps as he hears Molly’s voice in the darkness, guttural and fierce, Jester’s voice replying in the same tongue. A flash of arcane light allows the humans of the group to see the scene for a split second before the cavern goes dark again.

 

Argus notices the gnoll behind the group and engages it, missing it with the crowbar and the punch, his eyes not being able to get an accurate read on it. He hears Nott and a child screaming absolute bloody murder in the dark cavern before light makes its way into the cavern, presumably from Caleb.

 

As Argus’ eyes adjust to the lighting, the gnoll thrust forward with its spear, catching him in his side and cackling. Pulling himself off the blade, the monk throws a punch that catches the gnoll in the chin, and another that follows through on the first. He smiles as he hears Jester grumbling about having to do something, as well as feeling the heat of fire behind him as Caleb lets out a spell and says, “Eh- Yeah.”  _ He missed, didn’t he? Time for some new glasses. _ As he laughs he dodges out of another thrust from the spear and punches it in the face, letting it crumple before him and cutting the ears as he moves towards the party.

 

* * *

“This is a personal question but is anyone alive down there?”

 

A voice answers Molly’s. “I am the only one.”

 

“Oh.” Molly opens the door and Argus follows them inside, picking the man’s locks against the walls as the party calms him down. When they get him out, the party is planning on how to leave and kicking the gnolls and hyenas down the hole. Argus cracks open a few boxes with his crowbar, seeing that they’re just a bunch of crappy tools. 

 

“Hey,” Jester skips up to him. “We’re about to go to the surface, help us drag these bodies.” 

 

“Odd request, but alright.” He hangs the crowbar by a loop on his pants and picks up a lighter corpse, fighting back nausea as the group travels upwards.

 

* * *

Outside, Shakaste leads them to a shack, where the surviving victims run towards friends, bodies are identified, and waves of joy, sadness, gratitude, and respect fly around the area. Argus follows the human cleric out after sometime and the group heads back down into the mine, Argus stumbling and being caught by Molly who gives his patched-up stab wound a look. Argus waves away any question they have and continues on, pulling the tiefling by the arm to catch up to the group.

 

They walk past the ball-bearings, the candles, the last cavern they fought in, Caleb’s magic lighting the way for them. A hummingbird flew away from Shakaste, and Argus had a strange feeling that it was a familiar, and so he led the older man through the tunnels.

 

After some time, the hummingbird came flying back, landing on Shakaste’s shoulder as he pointed down the hallway.

 

“We have a friend about a hundred feet away. He’s by himself.”

 

“Prime target.” Argus remarks. Shakaste nods.

 

“We take him out, and move on to these two sentinels and see what they’re guarding.”

 

“We should distract him.” Fjord speaks up, still whispering, but making himself heard. “Dispatch him quietly.”

 

“Got it.” Argus takes out a ball bearing and tosses it, the sound of it clinking slowly disappearing with no reaction.

 

“Ah shit,” Beau says, frowning heavily. “He’s stupid.’’ 

 

“Well, who’s good at dispatching folks in the dark?” As a collective intelligence, the group all turns to Nott.

 

“Nott? You want to do this?” The goblin girl shrinks into herself a bit, muttering to herself.

 

_ Is she out of alcohol? _   “I’ll go with you, if you want.” Argus says.

 

“I’ll go too,” Fjord agrees, giving the man a look of polite distrust. “If you can muster up the courage.” Nott just looks even more uncomfortable with the prospect now.

In the end, it’s Shakaste who gets the trio going down the hallway to the guard, through a nice motivational speech that, although wasn’t even directed at Argus and Fjord, made them not want to ruin the opportunity for Nott and disappoint the cleric. Fjord slipped and alerted the guard, whimpers coming up from down below as Nott quickly whispered into a string and pointed back at the group.

 

“We’ve been made! We’ve been made!” There was a pause as quick wisps of magic traveled down the tunnel, only to return almost instantly, Nott nodding her head as she heard the response.

 

“What’d he say?” Fjord asked.

 

“He said ‘come back to us’, but I feel like we’re already here, we should just-” she pauses, smoke practically materializing from her ears as she’s thinking hard. “Oh gods, what do we do?”

 

“I’m with ya.”

 

Argus interjects. “What does that mean?”

 

“Let’s take ‘im out. You, Nott, and me.”

 

“Everyone keeps on making these weird speeches!” Nott exclaims, her voice still a whisper but carrying an air of annoyance and panic. “All right, sure, I feel inspired again!” She takes a heavy swig out of her flask, and Argus pulls them both to the side of the grade looking down at the guard as it picks up its longbow and glances around.

 

As soon as it thinks to look up, all three throw or fire something, the bolt from Nott’s crossbow missing, but Argus’ ball bearing and Fjord’s magic striking true, the arcane lights doing far more damage. An arrow whizzed up and caught Fjord in the chest, the half-orc stumbling back. Argus leans back to avoid any extra fire while Nott and Fjord fired again, the sound of it crumpling being lost on his attention as Molly and Jester rush past to get the ears of the thing and startles him into falling on a stalagmite. 

 

The two tieflings returned quickly, carrying the body of the guard quickly. “There are more of them down there!” Jester whispers.

 

* * *

The Grand Duchess flew in, out of anyone’s line of sight except technically Shakaste’s, until he says, “Come back to me darling.” and the humming of her wings is backed by the growling of gnolls and the nocking of bows.

 

Molly activates their second sword, a small drop of blood falling off the blade as the ground had a slight tremor, an arrow whizzing over the bird, Shakaste’s grin giving away his involvement as the familiar ethereal ice that Fjord employs during fights crystallizes against his armor. Argus snaps his fingers and his gloves tear a slight bit, scales poking through the fabric, as Jester pulls out her sickle, ready to strike.

 

Shakaste’s reed flicks, and Jester’s sickle waves as they rush forward to cast their spells, a gnoll bursting out into flames as the rest of the group runs down. Shakaste moves effortlessly from one spell to another, a second gnoll shakes for a bit, suddenly freezing. All of the gnolls backed up and fired, all of them missing the group.

 

As Argus moves up the stairs, he’s aware of Molly dashing next to him, snarling at a gnoll who doesn’t seem to react. He moves on past the blood hunter, dodging through the group of archers until he gets to the one at the back, throwing a punch that doesn’t connect thanks to the dark and following through with a quick spin to try and keep his target in his view.

 

Looking back at all the action, he notices a bolt shatter against the ice that viciously covers this gnoll, Jester running up and suddenly another Jester appearing closer to him as light starts to enter the cavern, the sharp crack of Beau’s staff signaling her and Caleb’s arrival to the fray, and the splintering sound signifies the defeat of one of the skeletal gnolls. He suddenly hears deep growling, and he turns around to see the pack leader pull out it’s longbow and fire at Jester, missing her and splintering against the wall behind her. 

 

While his back was turned, the gnoll behind him attempted to thrust at Argus’ back, but missed, flying off to the side. Argus whips around, slapping the gnoll across the face, scales leaving a sharp slice along its face as it ducks under the second attack, growling heavily, Molly carving apart another skeletal gnoll in the background of his vision. Bolts of fire flew from the cave, striking the leader. Fjord’s magic flew through the air and strikes the gnoll sneaking up on Argus, hitting it as the pack leader runs up and kicks Beau into an unseen pit, a thud emerging from it as she hits the bottom.

 

The gnoll takes another stab with its spear, Argus grabbing the shaft of it as it misses him and pulls it towards him, the momentum drawing the gnoll to the crowbar he pulled out of his pocket. He follows it up with two swipes, the first missing, but the second catching the gnoll in the throat and cutting off its life. Argus takes a long breath before hurried and intense shouting causes him to turn around, looking on bewildered as Jester on Nott take down the pack leader, shouts of, “We solved the mystery!” and “It was you!” leaving him even more confused.

 

As the gnoll pack leader fell, Beau hopped out of the pit, pointing behind her and saying, “Did you guys know that there was a hole back there?”

 

* * *

“I’ve got one gold left.” Argus holds out his hand and Jester flicks it towards him. Beau appears on his right side.

 

“You don’t really ask for coin that much, are you fine with what you have?”

 

“I have a few ears from the gnolls I’ve been fighting to make sure you don’t get jumped.” Argus replies, smirking at the look on Beau’s face as she realizes all the times Argus was on the edge of her vision. He does notice where Shakaste put his gold out of the corner of his eye, but he holds off on the urge to pickpocket the man.  _ Can’t fall off the wagon yet, Dairon would have my head. _ He instead makes his way towards the bulk off the group and watches as the hummingbird takes off, Nott’s hand traveling towards where Shakaste’s gold is.  _ However, she said nothing about stopping others from falling off.  _ Her hand reemerges, with a pouch curled in its fingers as she stashes it on her own person.

 

* * *

Argus comes back from leading out the previously bound guards as everything goes to shit. He see Caleb incinerate the priest, and as the monk rushes past, he sees that the redhead's eyes are glassy and focused on the priest, a look of quiet fear or impassivity on his face as the priest burns alive in front of him, eyelids barely moving, even through the few blinks that they must do.

 

The monk waves in front of his face, light from the flames flickering a red glow that bounces across his scales and dances across his skin, turning reddish-silver and a darker crimson as the light adapts around him. The wizard’s eyes are unresponsive, even as the manticore is defeated in front of him, slumping forward in death. It isn’t until Molly puts out the flame and delivers a light slap to his face that he comes back to reality.

 

“Back in the game! Time for that later.” They say, taking a few seconds to give Caleb a once over before making eye contact again. “You alright?”

 

The human pauses for a second, looking at the two people in front of him before he answers, “Yeah.”

 

“Alright.” Molly gives him a kiss on the forehead and walks away, dragging Argus with him. They wait until the two are down he steps before they whisper to the monk. “You keep an eye on him, make sure he isn’t too fucked up by this.”

 

“Wait, why me?” Argus was confused.

 

“Because I know you aren’t half-dragonborn and with whatever happened for you to get those scales, you can relate to whatever he’s going through.” They smile at the look of fear and shock on his face before giving him a quick pat on the cheek and pushing him back up the stairs, Caleb sitting on the ground and staring at the stone. Argus sat down next to him and fell back, looking up at the ceiling of the cavern.

 

_ Fuck, I hope that’s not going to be an issue later. _

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment! Tell me what you think about it, any scenes you want me to get from episodes 8 or 9 while I'm still writing it.
> 
> Also, check out my tumblr: mercurialcomet, where I have a commission post and a kkofi link if you're into that kinda stuff.


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